Chernykh, Liebenberg, and Macias have posted a paper, Changing Direction: Cross Border Acquisitions by Emerging Market Firms, in which they analyze acquisition patterns of emerging market firms in over 3,000 transactions. It seems that firms from countries with trade surpluses with the US are using their new found wealth to make profitable acquisitions of US (and other developed country) firms.

Abstract: We find a significant increase in both the number and economic size of cross-border acquisitions conducted by emerging market firms since 1990. The most dramatic turn is that the emerging market firms are becoming increasingly active in acquiring companies in developed countries. The analysis reveals two main growth patterns by emerging markets, either through mega deals (usually involving developed-market targets) or through frequent acquisition of smaller targets (usually involving emerging-market targets). Although the abnormal returns for targets acquired by emerging market firms is always positive, the magnitude more than doubles when the target is from a developed market. More importantly, emerging market acquirers also experience significant positive announcement returns when the target is from a developed market. Overall, we document that in their aim to grow globally emerging market acquirers play a significant role in cross-border acquisitions.